What Are your political leanings?

[bernadette]

He was in power for 4 years out of 90. The other two were in fundamentally ceremonial offices.

The rest of the time we have been governed by well-meaning guys of extremely limited ability with a nod to Rome (pre December 1979) and criminally-inclined corrupt shysters (post December 1979)

Lemass had to wait too long. Both Presidents were instrumental in their own way for bringing change and modernism to us.

Look at Kenny playing by someone elses rules and Higgins as quiet as a church mouse but much, much richer.

[Shaadi]

I'm reminded of the video clip before the last General Election when the reporter asks the man in the shopping mall who he was voting for. FF says he, the reporter says why would he do that after all they'd done to the country. I'm an anarchist says he, FF have half wrecked the country and I want them to finish the Job.

That's what it'll take to shake up the country. As Sidey said, the old people had some National pride and there's hope for the young. The generation that're running the country are vacuous, selfish greedsters. I put the rot down to the electorate becoming convinced of their dependence on the EEC/EU and the suppression of Nationalistic feelings of Independence and self-reliance by the media and political establishment.

We have no idea of what the country should be, it's just a hotel we're living in, we like the scenery but we have no concept of ownership of it. Like greedy guests, we just grab as much as we can from the buffet and retreat into our individual rooms, without giving a second thought for the consequences of our actions.

We don't care if the hotel is sold from under us, we've developed a taste for the good life. Just wait until the enormous bill comes in, the sh1t will hit the fan. We've grown used to the good life and we'll tear each other apart to make sure we keep it. Problem is, there won't be enough of the good life to spread around and the majority will be on the losing side. I wouldn't bet on them taking it lying down.

[fluffybiscuits]

I'm reminded of the video clip before the last General Election when the reporter asks the man in the shopping mall who he was voting for. FF says he, the reporter says why would he do that after all they'd done to the country. I'm an anarchist says he, FF have half wrecked the country and I want them to finish the Job.

That's what it'll take to shake up the country. As Sidey said, the old people had some National pride and there's hope for the young. The generation that're running the country are vacuous, selfish greedsters. I put the rot down to the electorate becoming convinced of their dependence on the EEC/EU and the suppression of Nationalistic feelings of Independence and self-reliance by the media and political establishment.

We have no idea of what the country should be, it's just a hotel we're living in, we like the scenery but we have no concept of ownership of it. Like greedy guests, we just grab as much as we can from the buffet and retreat into our individual rooms, without giving a second thought for the consequences of our actions.

We don't care if the hotel is sold from under us, we've developed a taste for the good life. Just wait until the enormous bill comes in, the sh1t will hit the fan. We've grown used to the good life and we'll tear each other apart to make sure we keep it. Problem is, there won't be enough of the good life to spread around and the majority will be on the losing side. I wouldn't bet on them taking it lying down.

A lot of people are not dependent on the EU at the moment, if anything they seem to label it as some sort of loan shark intent on emptying Irelands pockets for everything that it is worth. Ireland has got a taste for the good life, no Tesco own brand here, its brand names all the way. In order to change the status quo there needs to be a new breed of people to change the way we lead things, to take a new approach and appeal to the disenfranchised. Totally overhaul the system, we need someone who can walk on water and is an inspiration.

That is it, Ireland needs inspiration....

[MPB]

A lot of people are not dependent on the EU at the moment, if anything they seem to label it as some sort of loan shark intent on emptying Irelands pockets for everything that it is worth. Ireland has got a taste for the good life, no Tesco own brand here, its brand names all the way. In order to change the status quo there needs to be a new breed of people to change the way we lead things, to take a new approach and appeal to the disenfranchised. Totally overhaul the system, we need someone who can walk on water and is an inspiration.

That is it, Ireland needs inspiration....

Where do you think you can get it?

Do you think it will come from those we have eleted or do you think it needs to come from outside?

[fluffybiscuits]

Where do you think you can get it?

Do you think it will come from those we have eleted or do you think it needs to come from outside?

From within. There needs to be a spark inside us...Im writing a blog piece at the moment on political apathy, give us your thoughts when I finish it (Im gonna post it as a thread tommorrow)

[Baron von Biffo]

Have you ever been in love?

[Sidewinder]

Have you ever been in love?

Typical gobdaw sneery Paddy bolloxology.

It's passionless cynical sociopaths out for yourselves like you and the Baron that ruin Ireland. It's all just a sneery game to the likes of you. At least I still have enough humanity and feeling left in me to be passionately disappointed and angry at injustice and abuse, and even just the massive loss of potential that the stunted lives of millions of people living under an unjust and corrupt system represent.

Frankly in my book that makes me a much better person that you two sneery auld trough-snouting goats any day of the week.

[Shaadi]

A lot of people are not dependent on the EU at the moment, if anything they seem to label it as some sort of loan shark intent on emptying Irelands pockets for everything that it is worth. Ireland has got a taste for the good life, no Tesco own brand here, its brand names all the way. In order to change the status quo there needs to be a new breed of people to change the way we lead things, to take a new approach and appeal to the disenfranchised. Totally overhaul the system, we need someone who can walk on water and is an inspiration.

That is it, Ireland needs inspiration....

Where do you think you can get it?

Do you think it will come from those we have eleted or do you think it needs to come from outside?

The lack of vision and eloquence in our politicians is shameful, we are leaderless, led by shallow opportunist politicians and top civil servants who are in each others pockets and in bed with their backers, not one solitary one of them has a patriotic bone in their bodies.

Compare and contrast the words of Wolfe Tone, you could follow such a man to your death. You could barely stomach to listen to the majority of our politicians inarticulate back sliding dishonest spin and treachery..

‘WHETHER IRELAND BE, OF RIGHT, BOUND TO SUPPORT A WAR,
DECLARED BY THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, ON MOTIVES AND
INTERESTS ENTIRELY BRITISH?’


If it appear that she is, it is our duty to submit to the necessity, however inconvenient; if it appear that she is not so bound, but may grant or withhold her assistance to England, then it will be for your wisdoms to consider whether war be for her interest or not. If it be, you will doubtless take the necessary steps to carry it on with spirit and effect; if it be not, you will make arrangements to obtain and secure a safe and honourable neutrality. The present is a question of too much importance to both countries to be left unsettled; but though it be of great weight and moment indeed, I do not apprehend it to be of great difficulty. The matter of right lies in a nut-shell, turning on two principles which no man will, I hope, pretend to deny: First, that the Crown of Ireland is an imperial crown, and her legislature separate
and independent; and, secondly, that the prerogative of the Crown, and the constitution and powers of parliament, are the same here as in Great Britain. It is, undoubtedly, the King’s royal prerogative to declare war against any power it may please him to quarrel with; and when proclamation is made here to that effect, I admit, we are then engaged, just as the people of England are, in similar circumstances. But as we have here a free and independent parliament, it is as undoubtedly their privilege to grant, or withhold, the
supplies; and if they peremptorily refuse them, and the Mutiny Act, I know not how an army is to be paid, or governed, without proceeding to means not to be thought on. It follows, therefore, that the parliament of Ireland have a kind of negative voice, in the question of war and peace, exactly similar to that of the English parliament. If, then, they have this deliberative power, they are no further bound to support a war than the English parliament is, which may, undoubtedly, compel peace at any time by postponing the money and mutiny
bills. They are, therefore, not bound to support any war until they have previously approved and adopted it. The king of Ireland may declare the war, but it is the parliament only that can carry it on. If this be so, it follows, very clearly, that we are not, more than England, ipso facto, committed, merely by the declaration of war of our own king; and, a fortiori, much less are we committed by his declaration, as king of Great Britain, when our interest is
endamaged, and the quarrel and the profit are merely and purely English. If the parliament of England address his majesty for war and, in consequence, war be proclaimed; if we are at once, without our consent, perhaps against our will and our interest, engaged, and our parliament bound to support that war, in pursuance of that address; then, I saw, the independence of Ireland is sacrificed, we are bound by the act of the British parliament, and the charter of our liberties is waste paper.


TO TALK OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF A COUNTRY, AND YET DENY
HER A NEGATIVE VOICE IN A QUESTION OF NO LESS IMPORT TO HER
WELL-BEING THAN THAT OF PEACE OR WAR, IS IMPUDENT NONSENSE.

http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?t=12728

There're no Wolfe Tones anymore, Ganley has the eloquence but unfortunately he can't be trusted to use his his powers for good. It will have to be street protests, strikes or the blunt tool of a SF led Govt and hope for the best. There's no white Knight on the horizon, the best card we have is EU/ECB intransigence, they're too callous and arrogant to realise that they need to reduce the heat or the frog will jump out of the pot. Hunger is a great sauce, I'm looking forward to the shitstorm that's coming.

[wombatwalk]

Personally anarchist as an ideology and as practical as possible the way i would prefer to see non hierarchical organisation as the only way of challenging present political paradigms.
In relation to the actual grassroots day in day out issues poverty, housing, environment etc there has to be common ground, the future i think will be determined by single issue politics where people of a common opinion can unite throwing out the old distinctions.
In regard to republican politics - my opinion only that anarchism as an organisational structure has something to offer in each having a valued opinion - ideological i know but have faith in the individual to take responsibility for their actions with consideration not to Gibson the movement as a whole - unity is k lot to ask!

[Slim Buddha]

Typical gobdaw sneery Paddy bolloxology.

It's passionless cynical sociopaths out for yourselves like you and the Baron that ruin Ireland. It's all just a sneery game to the likes of you. At least I still have enough humanity and feeling left in me to be passionately disappointed and angry at injustice and abuse, and even just the massive loss of potential that the stunted lives of millions of people living under an unjust and corrupt system represent.

Frankly in my book that makes me a much better person that you two sneery auld trough-snouting goats any day of the week.

As the current mess intensifies and the tipping point is reached, the number of graduates and third-level educated people, whether already working or freshly-minted from our halls of academe, will increase dramatically and head for the airport and out. Therefore there will be less around to provide the fodder for the trough-snouters, never mind the imported population who, for one reason or another, are not economically productive.

We are heading for a serious crisis in society in Ireland, as the Baron's compulsive thread on the Urban-Rural divide illustrates.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

There's a mention of the trouble and the way Ireland has always been ruled- divide and conquer. In one way the tipping point will come as usual in Irish affairs when a majority have been forced by circumstance into an unlooked-for unity.

That one is coming down the tracks alright.

[eanach1]

Ya think? I wouldn't be so sure. They will probably keep welfare rates quite high and those who actually do get too pissed off will just continue to leave the country.
I'm not hopeful of change here at all, despite how desperate I am to see it. When I do meet people even in supermarkets in my local town I am still meeting those who say 'wasn't Mary Robinson great on the Late Late last night' and 'It's a great country'. I don't have an answer for them. If I'm with my father I have to be nice back to them and I just reply 'Well we have Vincent Browne at least, that's positive'.

What else can you say? When my father isn't with me I'm honest but I'm not someone who agrees with people just to get on with them.

[Baron von Biffo]

Typical gobdaw sneery Paddy bolloxology.

It's passionless cynical sociopaths out for yourselves like you and the Baron that ruin Ireland. It's all just a sneery game to the likes of you. At least I still have enough humanity and feeling left in me to be passionately disappointed and angry at injustice and abuse, and even just the massive loss of potential that the stunted lives of millions of people living under an unjust and corrupt system represent.

Frankly in my book that makes me a much better person that you two sneery auld trough-snouting goats any day of the week.

Pigs surely?

Goats are horns, beards and Satan. Pigs are troughs and snouts. Demarcation is important in these things.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Well I'd say the Irish population left there are about to get a good lesson in why saying nothin' while your own corner is okay only works up to the point where your corner is next up for attention.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Can't wait for the calls for public support for strikes in the civil and public service are issued. It'll be like the lonesome call of the whipperwool in the desert at night.

The civil and public service in Ireland were never intended to be exempt from the same pain as the rest of the population- they were simply held to the back of the line.